Roofies, or In Vino, Veritas
by Colubrina
Summary: Draco Malfoy rescues a rather inebriated Hermione Granger after he sees someone slip something into her drink. Drunken conversation ensues. Dramoine one-shot. EWE. T for a lot of language.


When he sees the guy slip something in her drink, he gives up. Despite the myriad things he's been willing to tolerate in his life, that one crosses a line.

"Go away." He waves a hand at the lout, who is at least smart enough to know when to leave, and sinks down into a seat next to her. "Granger, what are you doing?"

She looks at her glass, looks back at him and says, "I realize you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed, Malfoy, but I'd think that would be obvious, even to you. I am getting stinking drunk. It's part of a journey I have mapped out for myself tonight, you see, starting with alcohol and ending with a good, long cry." She takes a long drink and he buries his face in his hands. Oh, this is just great. Rescuing a drunken, depressed Granger. Why can't anything ever be simple? "I was contemplating adding a meaningless shag in the middle of all that but you appear to have chased away my partner so I suppose I'll just have to…"

He cuts her off. "You can stop now. I don't need to hear this. Really." He pushes her drink – her drugged drink – away from her and tries to decide what to do. Since he has no idea where she lives, and therefore can't just dump her in her own bed to sober up, he finally decides to haul her back to his flat, luring her with the promise of champagne. "_Good _champagne," he says, making a show of disdainfully sniffing. "Not whatever peasant swill you're drinking. Assuming you're even capable of tasting the difference."

Once back at his place he deposits her increasingly unsteady self on his couch. "Guest room through that door," he points. "It has its own toilet." Then he sits on a chair and looks at her. She's kicked off shoes and curled her feet under her, tucked herself into a corner and is looking back at him. She'd been pretty at school, by the end. Now she's stunning. Captivatingly lovely, smart as hell and presumably dating a man he still just despised. Weasley. What a waste.

She is, of course, also drunk and now that's she's settled into his couch she's starting to babble. "I always liked you, pretty, pretty Draco with the crazy, crazy parents."

"No you didn't." He stretches out in his chair, examining the top of his shoe. There's a scuff. How annoying. He'll have to fix that. "You hated me. Broke my nose, called me a cockroach."

"Ah, that's true. You were an evil little bastard. But so pretty. Perhaps I should say I always liked to _look_ at you."

"Who knew you were so into objectifying people, Granger," he drawls, both annoyed and oddly gratified. "I take it your noble quest for equal rights for all magical beings doesn't extend to me?"

"Like you need my help," she snorts. "You did just fine."

Has she lost her mind? "Oh yeah," he flashes his arm at her. "I did _great_. Nothing like a scar from a madman to illustrate 'got it all together.'" Not that he's bitter or anything. He expects her to throw the worst mistake of his life back in his face but instead she's nodding. "You're right. I'm sorry. That wasn't fair of me. Wasn't nice of me."

"What?" He can't believe he's heard that correctly. Did Hermione-fucking-Granger just apologize to him?

"You're right. You had a shitty go of it, there at the end. Your crazy, crazy parents, making you take that thing. Crazy as bedbugs." She tips her head to the side. "Are bedbugs crazy?"

"How the fuck should I know the mental health status of the vermin in your bed, Granger?"

"But I thought you had lots of opinions about Ronald."

He almost chokes. "Oh GOD. There are some things I don't need to picture and Ronald Weasley in your bed in one of them." He gets up, gets her a glass of water, holds it out. "Drink this."

She looks at it. "You told me champagne. I think I'd prefer champagne. Today is a day to celebrate."

"Yeah, well, and I'm giving you this. You'll thank me later. And I thought you were wallowing; tell me why you're celebrating. What's worth pickling your liver?" He puts the glass into her hand and picks up a lock of her hair. "Finally decided to cut this hideous mop off?" He runs it through his fingers, twines it around one. It's softer than he'd expected.

"Didn't you know, Malfoy? Haven't you heard? I am a single woman." She's trying too hard to enunciate and everything is coming out with the careful clarity of the intoxicated. "Sing-ull. Alone. Unwanted. Rejected. I think the reasons were, as I recall, that I am a bossy know-it-all who thinks she's better than everyone else but who can't even cook."

"Cook?"

"Yes. Cook. A real woman can make a shepherd's pie." Hermione points a finger at him. "And does. Often. Or so I have been informed."

Draco sits down next to her and rubs his forehead, right between his eyes. "Are you telling me that the Weasel dumped you over _cooking_? I mean, I know he's a moron with poor judgment and no class, but that seems extreme, even for him. Hasn't he heard of take-away?"

"Not everyone, Draco Malfoy, is rich. Some people cannot afford take-away every night. SOME people want their mother's meat loaf, and their mother's shepherd's pie, and their mother's something awful with sheep intestines that I refuse to even contemplate in my current state." She tips her head to the side, laying it on the arm of the couch and looks at him through heavy-lidded eyes and Draco wonders how it is she hasn't passed out yet. Just his luck that drugs seem to make the witch talkative instead of unconscious. Still, shit, picturing her in bed, even with that asshole Weasley, was a bad idea; now, with her hair spread out and those eyes watching him, his brain has taken that idea and run with it. He wonders what she looks like naked. "Plus, of course, the babies issue."

The _what_ issue? "He wanted you, what, barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen? Are you fucking kidding me?" Apparently it actually was possible that his opinion of Weasley could go down another notch. Who knew? "He snagged the brightest witch of our age and wanted to turn you into a _brood mare_?" No wonder she's drunk. And he really needs to not think about things one does to make babies but it's really too late and that is not okay. He doesn't take advantage this way; there are lines you don't cross, lines you shouldn't even think about crossing. Lines you shouldn't think about crossing in incredibly interesting and minute detail.

Oblivious to his totally inappropriate thoughts, she's continuing: "A cooking brood mare, to be precise."

"So why aren't you back at home with that git, learning to cook his precious mother's recipes and pushing out red-headed indigents?" The idea makes him feel rather ill and like he could use a drink himself, but it seems rude to start drinking if he's going to insist she has water.

"I don't _want_ a gazillion children. Not _now._" She drinks the water and squints at the cup. "Why isn't this champagne." Another drink. "Not _ever._ Maybe one. Eventually. But right now I want, I don't know, to do shit like argue about Foucault. To go out to poncy bars that serve overpriced preserved meats on stupid plates and argue about things that don't matter at all. Our childhoods _sucked_, Draco. They _sucked._" She takes a deep breath. "We spent all those years in orbit around that madman and I'd like to take a little time to have things _not matter_ before it's all about nappies and maturity and cooking dinner every night.

"Plus," she's on a roll now, "boys don't like smart girls. 'All you ever want to do is read'," she mimics Ron Weasley with horrifying, and, to Draco's mind, pretty hilarious accuracy. "'God, 'Mione, no one cares about Proust but you. Leave it alone.' I'm so tired of fucking dumbing it down all the time. Did you know I did all his homework for _six years_."

Draco is trying not to laugh. "You do know that not every man likes them dumb, right?"

"Could've fooled me," she mutters.

"I, for example," he continues, "vastly prefer smart women." That sounds too much like a hint so he immediately leers at her, "What are you supposed to talk about after sex with the dumb ones?"

"Apparently quiddich scores. And I have one name for you, Mr. 'I like them smart.' Pansy Parkinson."

"Point to you, Granger."

"Thank you." She drinks. "Seriously, though, why couldn't I have fallen for someone like you. Sure, you were a stuck-up, prejudiced jerk who was an asshole to my friends…"

"… which probably explains why you were never interested though…."

"…and you called me unspeakable names for years…"

"…I am sorry about the names…"

"…but at least you have a brain in your head." She exhales. "You're sorry?"

"Very much so." He takes her empty hand, turns it over, and begins tracing her palm with his finger. "I won't pretend to like your friends; I didn't, I don't, I probably never will. Weasley is beneath you. You, Hermione Granger, are brilliant and courageous and not at all unpleasant to look at and I wish I'd been less of an ass when I had the chance."

"Oh." And she slowly draws her hand away from him. "Why won't you give me champagne, Draco Malfoy? You bring me back here and then give me _water?_ That is really unfair; you're a lying liar who lured me with lies." She sets the glass in her other hand, the hand he wasn't just holding, down and looks at him and he's utterly amused that she looks petulant.

"Granger." She pouts at him and he tries not to think about sucking on that lower lip, about kissing that sulky little frown off her face. "If you're still speaking to me tomorrow night, I'll buy you a bottle of champagne, okay? But tonight I'm cutting you off. You've had enough. You've had more than enough."

"Promise?"

"Promise." It is, he thinks, the easiest promise in the world. She won't be speaking to him tomorrow night. She won't remember a damn thing from the time the drug went into her drink and she'd nearly drained the glass. He runs into her and plays the gallant and she's still so damned smart and alluring and funny and she's not going to remember any of this; life is really fucking unfair.

But she's learning forward, and her lips are on his, and he's got his hands on each side of her face and he lets himself kiss her for just a moment, just a moment, because, if he's totally honest, he's wanted to for such a long time and because, he tells himself, that just a tiny moment is okay, even if she is loaded and vulnerable. He lets himself feel her mouth soften and open under his and then, cursing himself and ethics and lines you don't cross, he gently pushes her away. "No."

"You don't want me. No one wants me. Why don't you want me, Draco Malfoy?"

He sighs, and looks at the woman leaning back from him on his couch. "I don't want you because you're drunk and drugged and out of your mind, you infuriating and beautiful termagant. Go to the spare room and sleep it off, for godsake."

"But what if I weren't. What if I were stone cold sober. Would you want me then, pretty, pretty Draco?"

"If you were sober and really truly wanted me, Granger? I'd take you out, argue with you about your Foucault and Proust, and then bring you back here and do my damnedest to fuck your brains out. I'd find out if we work together as well as I think we might. Because, unlike your ridiculously pathetic ex, I'm not intimidated by you. Because you're fascinating and brilliant and I don't give a rat's ass about shepherd's pie. But you're not sober, and you don't really want me, and in the morning, when you wake up and remember not a word of this conversation, I just hope I can get you out of here before you hex me. Now, for the love of whatever crap you muggles hold holy, would you_ please_ just go to bed and pass out?"

. . . . . . . . . .

When she wakes up she's still fully dressed, sans shoes, in an unfamiliar bed, alone. Malfoy's left her a glass of water and what looks like two aspirin. It was sweet of him, really, especially given what a self-pitying wench she'd been all night. She can't believe she'd called him 'pretty'. Multiple times. There's a reason she doesn't often drink to excess. She finds a clean t-shirt, presumably one of his, sitting next to the water and a hair tie in her purse, which was left neatly sitting by the table with the painkillers. Hair up, clean shirt on, she downs the water and the tablets and opens the door of the guest room. Her head has felt better but at least she's up.

Draco Malfoy is sitting at the kitchen table, drinking something that might be coffee and which she contemplates stealing from him. "How do you feel?" he asks, warily.

"Like I drank too much," she mutters. "Can I have some of that?"

"The pot's on the counter. Help yourself."

He's clearly waiting for her to demand an explanation of why she's in his flat. She opts, however, to forego the hysteria he expects and instead pour herself a cup and, closing her eyes and leaning against the counter, tries to drink some life back into her body.

"It was very sweet of you to rescue me," she finally says, eyes still closed. He makes good coffee. "But you didn't have to."

"Granger, you may not have been my favorite person in school, but I'm not going to sit there…"

"…I charm my drinks against date rape drugs. I'm not an idiot you know. Didn't you wonder why I didn't just pass out but talked at you all night?"

And she opens her eyes and he's staring at her. "You little… so you… everything I said to you... You little _sneak._" He looks furious and embarrassed and like he might actually throttle her before she even finishes the coffee, which would be just wrong. It's really good coffee.

"Did you mean it?"

"Mean what? That you're a sneak?" He's glowering and holding onto his coffee so tightly she wonders if the handle will break off the cup.

"That you'd take me out, talk about books, buy me a bottle of champagne." She looks down. There's a scratch in the table leg, a scuff-mark on the floor by his foot. Little dust motes settle through a beam of light from the window, dirty little stars. He's not saying anything and she feels like a fool. "You know what, never mi…

…. yes."

"What?"

"Yes, I meant it. Books, champagne. All of it." He pauses. "As long as you promise to never, ever try to cook any dish that involves sheep intestines."

"I expect it to be good champagne, you know. Not peasant swill." And she sniffs dramatically while watching him from under her lashes.

"Like you can tell the difference."

"Try me."

So he does. And she can.


End file.
